LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
This year the Life Time Achievement Awards will be presented to the following senior journalists who have served the profession for over 40 years. Neville de Silva started his professional career at the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd., (Lake House) where he later held several senior posts including Foreign Editor and Acting Editor. He worked in Hong Kong at The Standard and in London for the Gemini News Service. He has been a correspondent for New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian, Le Monde, Asian Wall Street Journal, AFP and several other foreign media. He is currently a regular contributor to the Sunday Times in Colombo. Piyasena Ihalavithana was a long serving journalist at the Davasa newspaper published by Independent Newspapers Ltd., where he rose to the position of News Editor prior to moving to Lake House where he was News Editor of the Dinamina. He later joined the Irudina Newspaper published by Leader Publications Ltd., where he was the chief sub-editor until 2012. Veeragathy Thanabalasingham joined the Virakesari newspaper published by Express Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd, as a proof reader. Having served in the Virakesari newspaper for over two decades he helped launch the Thinakkural newspaper in 1997 and became its founder Editor. The newspaper is published by Asian Media Publications (Pvt) Ltd. Sarath Malalasekera was a senior reporter at Lake House specialising in court reporting for the Daily News and Sunday Observer. Most of his courts reports were also translated into Sinhala and published in the Dinamina and Silumina of the same group. Premasiri Abeysinghe began his newspaper career at the Siyarata newspaper and worked at the Sinhala Bauddhaya, one of the oldest newspapers of Sri Lanka. In 1977 he joined Dinamina as a sub-editor and became Editor of the Budhusarana newspaper.